4/17/12: We're nearing the final month of my Pencils of Promise project and my revised goal is to raise $500 for Pencils of Promise by MAY 30! (more about this organization is written below.) Then, I'll turn my focus to another one of my favorite organizations called Charity: Water for a few months and most likely come back to raising money for PoP in September for about a month before switching to Charity: Water again to round out the year. The reason I'm breaking it up like this is because on Charity: Water's website you can only set up fundraising pages for 90 days at a time, so I will be trying to focus on them in the 3 months leading up to my birthday (August 31) and then leading up to the holidays/end of the year.

About Pencils of Promise: If you don't know anything about their mission, I strongly encourage you to take a look at their website (pencilsofpromise.org), but the short version is they help build schools in developing countries like Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Laos. Why? Because believe it or not there are 75 million children in the world who do not have access to even a pre-school education and PoP wants to change that in a big way! They have completed 50 schools since being established in 2008! Their goal is to build 100 schools (50 more) along with 100 new classrooms by the end of 2012. My goal, again, os to raise $500 by May 30. This amount though not large enough to sponsor or build a classroom or a school, will provide another year of education to 20 children who might not have had that opportunity with out our help and without the help of PoP!! Anyway, to wrap this up, I'd like to say the PoP movement is something so incredible that just telling you these numbers absolutely does not get across how incredible, important, and necessary this organization is for the future of education in the developing world, so please check out their website and read all about their unique approach, how it all got started, and learn more about the schools they've already built and/or are in the process of building. If you care at all about or believe in the power of education and the opportunities it provides, PoP will blow your mind! Also, take a look at my project page if what I've written here or what you've seen/read on the website has compelled you to help. Trust me, any amount you give will make a difference for children in developing countries. How do I know that? Because PoP is now making sure that 100% of online donations goes directly to their projects/education programs, so you won't be paying for the employees or something like that and to me that's amazing and exactly what I think should be the case with all charities!

Thank you to everyone for your unbelievable support of me and my projects and all the causes I love to help! And thank you for helping with what matters to you because let's be honest, there are so many absolutely inspiring and important causes on Crowdrise that I think at one point a good majority of us on here have thought: "Man, if there was enough time, money etc. to help everyone of these people and causes, that would be perfect." The problem is that there's not, but I will continue to do my best to help everyone and with everything I reasonably can. Although, sometimes I like to focus on a small number of projects for awhile because it seems to be more effective and efficient to have a couple or few goals to reach at a time than ten to strive for like I used to (which I wish I could still do because I never want to feel like I'm, in a sense, neglecting a cause that's important to me.) Anyway, again, thank you all for wanting to help. Even getting some votes is pretty cool because it means people care about/appreciate what I'm trying to do even if they can't devote the lots of time it takes to help or the money that is so hard to come by these days, so thank you to all of you.

Now for the "About me" portion: I believe that with God all things are possible and I see evidence of this every single day. Each day and each moment we are given is a gift we should all cherish and we must do our part to improve this world while we can.

I love people and animals and I will do whatever I can do to help improve the lives of both. I Please help me save/improve the world one person and/or one animal at a time by spreading the word about my projects or donating if you can or both. Thanks.

I'm a 19 year old trying to make the biggest impact and help as many people, animals, and organizations as I can. I think we should all do whatever we can to improve our world. One person cannot make as big of a difference as many people working together to accomplish a common goal, so work with me and help me make as big of a difference as possible! Your support, whether it be a vote, a comment, a message, a donation, or you joining one of my teams lets me know I'm making a difference. Will return all votes! :) "We can make a great difference in the end with small steps every day"- Sophia Bush <---this is what I plan to do, so if you feel the same way, help me out, it only takes one click! :) P.S. If you have extra time, be sure to vote for Sophia Bush, Austin Nichols, all of my friends here on CR, the members of my teams, and the wonderful people who have donated to my projects because they all deserve votes, too!